Diary of a Mapper
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World Cup Mapper meets the wildlife.

By Bryan Teahan

I was the world cup mapper and I would like to just describe some of my
experiences of mapping over the last two years. I have now mapped or
drawn close to 50 maps and the World Cup map was the hardest and biggest
map I have ever done (even though it ended up being two maps). I had little
or no basemap (see comparison between base map and finished product) and I
had to painstakingly slowly fit small pieces into the bigger picture.
Normally I can fieldwork at about 15-30 hrs per square km but the thick
native bush (which was usually wet) took upwards of 200 hrs per square km.
On hindsight it would have been easier to pick an easier, flatter open
forest area with a far more accurate basemap but would Alistair have won?
I think not. We chose the best area that would suit the Kiwis and we gave
the overseas competitors something that they will remember.

Some of the more memorable moments mapping:
- eyeballing a deer. A deer was bounding along in the native bush enjoying
life till it came suddenly face to face with me in multi-coloured o'suit,
pink sun-hat and purple pack. It came to almost within spitting distance
before it suddenly took off - and then stopped around the side of a spur
out of sight wondering what that wierd apparition was.
- I once thought as I was wading through chest-high cutti grass:
'There must be a fence here somewhere' and a nanosecond later I hit it
hidden in the undergrowth. Its always comforting to reafirm now and then
as a mapper that I am where I think I am.
- Finding 3 cannibis plots in thick green in 15 minutes.
- On a hot summer's day the noise of the cicadas was a roar reaching a
cresendo and cacophony of noise making even thinking difficult. Every now
and then was the bell sound of a tui, the flutter of a wood pigeon and the
hoot of an owl. In the background symphony there were fantails flittering
and darting about seemingly asking the question "Why are you here?".
Huge spiderwebs hung glistening with moisture in the morning and sometimes
my whole face was accidentally covered with the clinging webs making me
think I was spiderman.
- Some of the other bird and insect life I also came across were peacocks,
pheasants, parrots, horses, rabbits, hawks, sheep, cattle, goats,
deer, ducks, swans and maybe wallabies. I also had to cope with
dodging 4WDs, motorbikes, lost trampers, horse trekkers, mountainbikers,
attacking magpies and being stung several times by wasps.
- Within a week I was in a hailstorm and a sandstorm. After the hailstorm
I had to spend 10 minutes changing a pencil lead. My hands were so
numb I had to use my teeth. During the sandstorm out on the APOC map
I had to map from a depression and every now and then duck out to take
a peek at the surrounding area while the sand blasted at me.
- Watching military guys shooting automatic weapons practising trying to
capture a sand dune hill. They didn't even know I was there.
- I had to take to wearing red during hunting season after meeting hunters
carrying big shotguns. When hunting season opened it was as if the 3rd
World War had started. The scariest moment mapping was when I heard a
shot go off within 50m of me. I then turned around to see a deer looking
at me about 20m away in the close pines. I got out of there quick I can
tell you. With the amount of firing that went on in the next 5 minutes
I'm pretty sure that deer is still out there alive.
- 95% of the time my running shoes are in my car but one day when I went
mapping good old Murphy struck again and I reached the forest without
any shoes except jandals. I couldn't possibly waste 40 minutes mapping
(I was losing daylight) so I tried jandals for 10 minutes. I gave this up
after trying for 3 minutes walking up a sand hill. I got rid of the
jandals and walked around for 7 hours in bare feet. I felt like a hippie
communing with nature. Can you believe it? This wasn't the only disaster
to struck that fateful day. As I put the jandals in my pack my lunch must
have dropped out?! Somewhere on the world cup map is two chicken rolls in
glad wrap waiting to be eaten.
- Losing your lunch is not as bad as forgetting to take any drink. Have you
been without water for 6 hours and walked about 10km up and down hills? I
have - its not fun. Another day I forgot my pencils which did require a
40 minute delay. On still another day I got a forest key and drove to
a gate only to find an impassible slip 5m from the gate. I had a good
training run that day.
- The most soul-destroying thing to happen to me mapping was after doing
a day's mapping I placed the fieldwork face inwards in my pack and
I found after running 20 minutes back to my car that most of the fieldwork
was obliterated by sweat. There is nothing more painful than having to
map an area twice.
- Oh, have I mentioned the flies, sandflies, prickly bush, numerous
scratches, grass seeds that take forever to get rid off, bush lawyer,
sunburn, soggy smelly shoes and socks and sand that gets everywhere.
Mapping is fun. Not.

A mapper's motto could be summarised as:
"Deadlines and Committments - What to leave in, what to leave out..."
(Bob Segar)
The mapping was a collaboration between several different mappers. I did
the fieldwork, Michael Wood the fieldcheck and Wayne and Trish Aspin the
fine tuning for the course setting. I was amazed how different mappers
can interpret the landforms differently. The same knolls, hills, reentrants
and depressions can be mapped in many mays with different sizes and shapes.
To my mind all of the interpretations were correct. A map can range from
being mapped very detailed where every little feature is mapped to having
only the big features mapped. Orienteers once they have come to grips with
the style of mapping can run on both quite happily. Some of the
enjoyment out of producing the World Cup map was muted because of the
differences that crept in after I finished the fieldwork and what now
appears on the final map. Although the mapping had to be more of a team
effort to get a more accurate map, the finished World Cup map has a
different style to my other maps. I got more enjoyment from the APOC map
(Knottingly) knowing the areas I mapped are my own style and solely
mapped by me.

The final word goes to Alistair Landels, the person who made all those
long hours worthwhile. As Alistair said in his interview on TV he has
three strengths, 'Sand dunes, steep hills and Green' and the World Cup
map was all three giving an advantage to all the Kiwis. I asked
Alistair just after he'd finised what he'd thought of the map.
He replied, 'What a bastard of a map'.
I took that as a compliment.